Today, David Cameron is to urge the “silent majority” of Union supporters to speak up and find their voice, during a speech he will make in Scotland ahead of the Scottish independence referendum.
His message is for backers of Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom to have their voice heard over “the noise of the Nationalist few”, which Cameron claims we’ve already heard.
He’s expected to say:
We’ve heard the noise of the Nationalist few, but now it is time for the voices of the silent majority to be heard.
The silent majority who feel happy being part of the UK; the silent majority who don’t want the risks of going it alone; the silent majority who worry about what separation would mean for their children and grandchildren.
With 77 days to go, we need the voices of the many to ring out across the land. For each one to realise that they are not alone because there are millions just like them…
Too many people in this country have been made to feel that you can’t be a proud Scot and say No Thanks. You’ve got to choose between the Saltire and the Union flag.
That is wrong. Loving your country means wanting the best for it – and for Scotland that is staying in the UK.
So yes – you can be a patriotic Scot and vote no.
Many will agree with the PM’s implied diagnosis of the “No” side’s problem: communication. It doesn’t have the passion, emotion or dynamism that Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond and his Yes team have displayed throughout the battle of the referendum campaigns, and it’s not just something the Prime Minister has picked up on.
When Secretary of State for Scotland Alistair Carmichael took over from Michael Moore late last year, he was frank in his criticism of the Better Together campaign, lamenting that “it has been all a bit managerial and we do need to be spikier, wittier and prepared to talk real time about what matters to people.” That was in October, and there’s still the problem that Labour MP Alistair Darling’s measured, mild-mannered style as head of the campaign isn’t gaining as much traction in the public eye as his opponents.
I went up to Glasgow East to interview shadow Scotland secretary Margaret Curran in June, a long time after Carmichael had made his criticisms, and she admitted that her side of the argument were still having communication problems: “They [the Yes campaign] are good campaigners,” she conceded, “and I would never take that away from them. They’re really good campaigners.”
So it seems all “No” sides – Tories, Lib Dems and Labour – agree to an extent with the PM’s analysis of the communication problem that he will be voicing today. But is he the right person to be voicing it?
There is a reason he’s repeatedly refused to debate with Alex Salmond on television: he knows it would be a bad move to play into Salmond’s narrative of patriotic Scots versus nasty Tory toffs lecturing from down south in Westminster. The Conservative-led government’s general perception problem of being out-of-touch is heightened in the context of the Scottish referendum debate, because there’s the danger that Scottish voters will be put off voting along the three main Westminster parties’ lines in the referendum due to the fact that they don’t seem in step with the concerns of ordinary Scots, being so stuck in their London bubble.
So it is a risk for Cameron going up to Scotland to make a speech that not only is him weighing into the referendum debate on Salmond’s own turf, issuing instructions to Scottish voters, but is also a not-so-subtly veiled criticism of the Better Together campaign, suggesting it hasn’t done enough to champion the voices of Scottish “No” voters.
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